Life is full of challenges, both big and small. Spirituality is here to offer solutions.

Over the course of his career as physician, teacher, and bestselling author, Deepak Chopra has received thousands of questions from people facing every kind of challenge. They have asked how to lead more fulfilling lives, how to overcome relationship problems and personal obstacles. What’s the best way to deal with a passive-aggressive friend? Can a stagnant career be jump-started? In a world full of distractions and stress, how does one find time for meditation?

Hidden among all of these questions are answers waiting to be uncovered.

In this groundbreaking book, Chopra shows you how to expand your awareness, which is the key to the confusion and conflict we all face. “The secret is that the level of the problem is never the level of the solution,” he writes. By rising to the level of the solution in your own awareness, you can transform obstacles into opportunities. Chopra leads the reader to what he calls “the true self,” where peace, clarity, and wisdom serve as guides in times of crisis. For Chopra, spirituality is primarily about consciousness, not about religious dogma or relying on the conventional notion of God. “There is no greater power for success and personal growth than your own awareness.” With practical insight, Spiritual Solutions provides the tools and strategies to enable you to meet life’s challenges from within and to experience a sense of genuine fulfillment and purpose.

EXCERPT

No one will disagree that life brings challenges, but step back for a moment and ask the deeper question, which is why. Why is life so difficult? No matter what advantages you are born with— money, intelligence, an appealing personality, a sunny outlook, or good social connections— none of these provides a magic key to an easy existence. Somehow life manages to bring difficult problems, the causes of untold suffering and struggle. How you meet your challenges makes all the difference between the promise of success and the specter of failure. Is there a reason for this, or is life simply a random series of events that keeps us off balance and barely able to cope?

Spirituality begins with a decisive answer to that question. It says that life isn’t random. There is pattern and purpose inside every existence. The reason that challenges arise is simple: to make you more aware of your inner purpose.

If the spiritual answer is true, there should be a spiritual solution to every problem— and there is. The answer doesn’t lie at the level of the problem, even though most people focus all their energies at that level. The spiritual solution lies beyond. When you can take your awareness outside the place where struggle is ever-present, two things happen at the same time: your awareness expands, and with that, new answers begin to appear. When awareness expands, events that seem random actually aren’t. A larger purpose is trying to unfold through you. When you become aware of that purpose— which is unique for each person— you become like an architect who has been handed the blueprint. Instead of laying bricks and fitting pipes at random, the architect can now proceed with confidence that he knows what the building should look like and how to construct it.

The first step in this process is recognizing what level of awareness you are working from right now. Every time a challenge comes your way, whether it is about relationships, work, personal transitions, or a crisis that demands action, there are three levels of awareness. Become aware of them, and you will take a huge step toward finding a better answer.

Level 1: Contracted Awareness

This is the level of the problem, and therefore it immediately grabs your attention. Something has gone wrong. Expectations have turned sour. You face obstacles that don’t want to move. As resistance mounts, your situation still doesn’t improve. If you examine the level of the problem, the following elements are generally present:

Your desires are thwarted. Something you want is meeting with opposition.

You feel as if every step forward is a battle.

You keep doing more of what never worked in the first place.

There is an underlying anxiety and fear of failure.

Your mind isn’t clear. There is confusion and inner conflict.

As frustration mounts, your energy is depleted. You feel more and more exhausted.

You can tell if you are stuck at the level of contracted awareness by one simple test: the more you struggle to get free of a problem, the more you are trapped in it.

Level 2: Expanded Awareness

This is the level where solutions begin to appear. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. For most people this level isn’t immediately available, because their first reaction to a crisis is to contract. They become defensive, wary, and fearful. But if you allow yourself to expand, you will find that the following elements enter your awareness:

The need to struggle begins to diminish.

You start to let go.

More people connect with you. You allow them more input.

You approach decisions with confidence.

You meet fear realistically and it starts to lessen.

With clearer vision, you no longer feel confused and conflicted.

You can tell that you have reached this level of awareness when you no longer feel stuck: a process has begun. With greater expansion, unseen forces come to your aid. You move forward according to what you desire from your life.

Excerpted from Spiritual Solutions: Answers to Life's Greatest Challenges Copyright @ 2012 by Deepak Chopra. Reprinted by Permission of Harmony, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.